Monday, 28 November 2011

Email - the bain of my life.

So here was I thinking that the technological revolution made our lives easier? I have to admit I'm a lover of email, email makes my world turn! It has nothing to do with being afraid of using the phone or being shy, I just find email the best way to communicate! It allows me to stick all my thoughts or the entirety of my argument down, or most recently pitch my documentary to potential contributors in a coherent manner. Also I can access my email at any time of the day; when I've been at Uni or work, I often don't get the chance to read emails, or in most cases read them properly! So I find it quite therapeutic to read them all in one go with a cuppa! It also means I can analyse what everyone has said to me, useful when trying to organise a schedule with contributors! Sometimes I don't know what I'd do without it!

However the one thing that really annoys me about email is that nobody ever reads it properly! So often in the last couple of weeks I've had replies from companies that are not even relevant to what I've said. Its the classic case of employees reading for key words and replying with a generic email. For example I've been contacting Coca-Cola and Carling as they've both been sponsors of the TFL Busking Scheme, asking why they sponsored the scheme and why they think busking is important to our country! Then I get a nice email explaining that their sponsorship scheme is full at the moment and closed for applications, I've been added to the application mailing list for the future! Joy!

Its actually really upsetting when you've spent time and energy on writing the right email! Another draw back is peoples ability to ignore you. People can read an email and quite simply choose not to reply, or avoid a question entirely, something that's not so easy on the phone!

I do wish people would read their emails properly, it would save so much time and effort, it just goes to show that the technological revolution hasn't solved all of our communication issues!